A very dark topic...Read at your own risk.

I am not sorry for posting what I'm about to post. It is a very dark and tremendously depressing topic, but I must share with you people, what I know.

I was thinking this weekend, Saturday. I spent all day thinking...I sat out by my pool and stared at the sky, smoking cigarettes, and thinking. I thought about everything.

After a few friends stopped by and we did some whippits in the pool(I highly recommend), I retreated inside as they went home. With the topics of my earlier thinking still on the brain I again thought more and more. I was thinking about life. All life. I was mainly thinking about afterlife. I questioned every possibility about an afterlife.

Well, my good friends, I came to the conclusion that God was created by man. God was made to make people feel better about death. Everyone always ask the question, "What happened to the people who died before Christ?" Well, I know the answer. They weren't reincarnated...Their souls weren't held in limbo. The same fate that awaited them awaits us. Death is the end. Once you die, that's it, it's all over.

I needed to share this. I shared it with many friends already and they of course were in denial, but after they let their mind think it over, it became a sound theory. They agreed, as I'm sure all skeptics will one day. We all made a promise to live each day to the fullest, because once we die, there is no Heaven, there is no Hell, there is nothing, we cease to exist.

This is a very convenient quote from a recent movie I thought I should print..."The body cannot live without the mind."-Lawrence Fishburne, Matrix.

Think of this...If all your senses were taken away, you couldn't feel, taste, see, hear, or smell. How would you know you existed? You would only be able to think. What makes us think? Signals in the neurons of our brain. Once we die, our brain shuts down...Our brain shuts down. We cant's see, hear, taste, touch, smell....or think. We cease to exist.

[This message has been edited by NecroTrance (edited 18 July 2000).]
[Note: This message has been edited by FoX]

[edited - paragraphing]

There is OBVIOUSLY a higher being .. you can NOT seriously dispute that .. think about this, SOMEONE or SOMETHING had to make EVERYTHING .. SOMETHING or SOMEONE had to set everything in motion .. you can say man evolved from birds or fish or single cell orginisms - but what created those? You can believe in the "big bang" theory - but SOMETHING had to create the shit that went BANG ..
Now wether there is an after life - I don't know if I buy into all that .. but there could be .. I believe we DO have souls, so there COULD be something ..
I don't believe 99% of the shit in the bible, and I agree that it is probably something man devised to explain things .. but there IS a higher force ..
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"It's never to hot to feel the warmth"

They agreed, as I'm sure all skeptics will one day.

Click to expand...

This isn't bad knowledge, it's just a little bit depressing. I look at it as setting me free. Now I can really live because I know it's all the time I have.
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Give every police officer, judge, and government official in the US a bean...And X will be legal.

You are doing the same as people have being since the danw of time - creating something that you can hold onto, to sustain you in your day to day life, to give you a reason for living.

I look at it as setting me free. Now I can really live because I know it's all the time I have.

Click to expand...

Who knows what lies beyond life - I think we are being abit niave to say that nothing exist full stop. There is so much that we don't understand about thing on this planet, thing right in front of us, we lare learning every day - so how can we even come to understand what lies beyond. Personally I believe there is something beyond - what?, I don't know? One day I'll finmd out
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"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on" - Billy Connolly

I sat around one night after an evening of tripping thinking of the same topics. The existance of a god seems quite unlikely considering that throughout our lives we were taught that people are fashioned in God's image. Now the research out there seems to point completely toward evolution from a lower life form, and would seen to follow that it will continue through the existance of humanity. While in a discussion with one of my friends, he told me that he beleived that our minds and souls were in the image of God, but then again, in the time that man has existed on this planet we have seen great advances in the patterns of human thought through what we have created.
Even if I am wrong in my beleifs of a god and an afterlife, I came upon a compromise with myself. As long as I have lived my life to the fullest and have stayed true to all that I hold dear, then through all that I have touched in life, be it friends, family, collegues; my life will be carried on in the ideals that I instill with them.
If you are unsure of you thoughts and faith, and still need a higher power who will pass judgement on you when you die; look inside yourself for the virtues that make every human a true individual: truth, courage, faith, power, integrity, accountability, the list goes on forever. Find these things inside you and you will see that the only one that can pass judgement on you is yourself, the only one you need to answer to is yourself.
God is who and what you want it to be, each person needs to come to that conclusion at some point in their life and only then will they truly understand thamselves. I have yet find this conclusion, but I feel that I am on the path that will lead to to it.
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~DANK~
"I try avoid looking backwards or forwards, instead I look only upwards.

Hmmm... if God exists, he's got a real hate on for some people.
Also, he doesn't believe in karma. That's a given. He believes in delayed gratification - carrot and stick. "Don't worry - your life may be a miserable cesspool, but just wait it out. When you eventually die of old age, things will be better." He doesn't believe in equalizing the scales on Earth. What goes around down here doesn't necessarily come around.
He's also got an ego. Notice the order of the commandments. What comes first? "Thou shalt not kill"? Nope. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife"? Not a chance. Number one - "Thou shalt have no Gods before me."
Finally, he's got a badass sense of humour. Guys peak at 18, women at 30+. Tell me that's not a hoot. And just try to tell me that Richard Simmons is the work of a "serious artist".
I'm gonna retreat into my hole now and wait for the lynch mob to disperse.

If God could sue organizations for slander...
What evolutionary process does a cannabis plant have???
Why does a mushroom (amanita, or otherwise) make you trip?
Why would a government outlaw a drug that makes you love....
These are the questions...
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Holy, holy, holy
LORD God Almighty,
which was, and is, and is to come.
Jesus was a RAVA

this is my theory... im kinda sketchy right now so it might sound fucked up...
there is no christian/jewish/muslim-like "God"... how can u say a loving god exists when the world is in such a fucked up state as it has been thru out the last 10,000 years of recorded history? its obviously a contradiction. and dont tell me its because of "satan". if the "loving" God created us, how could he let the "evil" satan destroy us? its contradictory. its just another bullshit story, the same kind of bullshit stories all religions have.
there is a creator (obivous-FUCKING-ly) but it is definately not the kind of creator portraid by any major religion. i hate this creator... why? my life is literaly a living hell, and there is aboslutely NOTHING i can do to change it. i think of suicide daily, its not depression that makes me think of this, its reality. i dont KNOW what lies after death... i think it could be heaven. a heaven open for all. but if u dont want to enter u can go to hell.... thats my theory.. i hope im right... cos i dont want to die and go back to another hell.

I think you might all enjoy reading "Existentialism is a Humanism" by Sartre.
It's short, and is probably the clearest description of what existentialism really is, and why atheism is an optimistic belief system.
Here's the link:
Dead Link
Enjoy!
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.

To all this wonderful banter, all I have to say is: prove it. Sorry, but the proofs for God I have heard about are more convincing than the opposition. Prove that God doesn't exist. If I can't prove that He does, you can't do the opposite. Trust me.
In any case, people talk about living life to their fullest, if there's nothing in the hereafter. Not--if there's no hereafter, then you can nix living life to your fullest, because you might as well just have sat on your ass. Think, it's like taking a six-week tour of Europe. Except when you get back, you can't remember any of it. What was the point of taking the tour in the first place? Did you even take one at all?
I find it interesting that some people find solace in the concept of there being no God, etc., because it's really no different from those who find solace in there being one. For whatever reason, the idea of there not being a God is more comforting to some people than the opposite, so they gravitate to it. But hey, there will be those who are utterly convinced it's only reason that pushes them this way. Sorry, but you can't separate yourself from your most basic human impulses, some of which we don't even know yet. The religious and atheists are transparent.
And in any case, even if there is no afterlife, is that a bad thing? Oblivion sounds pretty cool--no more neuroses, no more pain, no more of the emotions and perceptions that make living so difficult.
It'll be like sleeping, only better. But say, if there is a God, do you really think He'd make it that easy for us? Especially if you subscribe to the de rigueur opinion that God is a ruthless oppressor? Hey, what better way to torture humanity than to promise that there is no escape from the burden of consciousness, even in death?
Though I've been rambling here, here's my conclusion: I personally believe in God and the hereafter. But those who utterly deny the possibility are just as foolish as those who cling blindly to it. As if there are any final answers at all. Give me a break.

if god existed, and wanted us to follow and praise him, which they say he does, why the fuck wouldn't he show himself, and prove it for once. how can you believe in something that you have no proof of whatsoever. i mean you can say that we ourselves are proof of his existance, just because we live and breath. but none of us can even phathom what billions and billions of years of evolution can create. for all we know religion was created by man as a sort of crowd control. without religion, and the possibility of an afterlife, this would mean we were free to do what we want, and it all goes unpunished, the world would be in chaos. it makes sense to set rules and guidelines for us to live in peace. not to mention how corrupt religious figures themselves are. i mean, our almight god wants us, humans, who he himself gave the power of intelligence to, to spend our entire lives blindly following an absent god with no solid evidence whatsoever. i don't know about that. i would love to believe in life after death, and besides everything i just wrote, i can't say i don't, but definitely can't say that i do. basically, nobody knows. but you gotta think, why, if there was, would he not prove to us that it existed. it would only make the world a better place.
peace, head

Belisarius-
Your fourth paragraph answers the dilemma posed in your second paragraph.
Also, it's impossible to prove the non-existence of anything.
Let me ask you, do you believe in unicorns? What about Zeus? Give me absolute PROOF they don't exist. It's impossible to proove non-existence.
Atheists believe that given the evidence, the lack of a God is considerably more likely that the existence of God. And even if God did exist, it wouldn't matter.
The previous essay I linked explains this well.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.
[This message has been edited by Trancendance (edited 18 July 2000).]

To quote Belisarius, "But those who utterly deny the possibility are just as foolish as those who cling blindly to it."
Not actually so. You see, you can't prove a negative. We cannot prove that pink unicorns don't fly around the earth. They might, but we have no evidence of any, so there's no reason to blindly believe that they do just because we can imagine the existence of these mythical creatures. When it comes to the existence of "God", the proof lies with the one who asserts its existence. To quote Michael Shermer, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
As far as an afterlife, it would pretty much require magic for something like this to be possible. Without the electricity in your brain functioning then there's really no "YOU". In order for YOU to exist in an afterlife something would have to download your current memory into another medium in order for YOU to exist somewhere else. If you end up in an afterlife but have no recollection of your previous life whatsoever, then it's safe to say that you aren't YOU anymore. I'm not saying that an afterlife isn't possible, it's just highly unlikely, and I'm not one to subscribe to magic.
If you're interested, I had another post about why humans think what they do on this thread : Dead Link
"If God didn't exist it would be necessary to create him." - Voltaire
Stasis
[This message has been edited by Stasis (edited 18 July 2000).]

Belisarius - "Prove that God doesn't exist."
It is virtually impossible to prove nonexistence.
I don't believe that there are seven-legged dogs with eyes that emit laser beams, who drool pure mercury - but I can't prove it.
Since proving existence is possible, and proving nonexistence is not, where do you lay the burden of proof?

Wow, I just looked back and realized that Peter, Trance and myself all said about the same thing, all around the exact same time. Coincidence?!! Ha ha ha...
I guess great minds think alike. Peter, for some strange reason I knew you would be fun to roll with, I bet we could really dissect some shit (well.. not literally).

[This message has been edited by Stasis (edited 18 July 2000).]

Since when is the truth a dark topic?
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If it's orange and fuzzy, it's FoXy...therefore it's a CANDYFLIPPER!
"Yer a FoX, yer supposed to bite...."
AIM: OrangeFuzzy1

I just think that it is stupid to think that some all powerful ghost man made this eath and everything in space. i mean come on that sounds crazy to me. well if god created this universe and all that shit then who created him i mean did he all of a sudden just appear.
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"You mean we're smokin dog shit man??"

It is frightening, isn't it Stasis? Right down to the exact same example. Too bad we're not all from the same area, we'd make quite a crew. I can always count on at least a few Bluelighters for intelligent and thoughtful opinions.
And Peter, you say you don't believe in seven-legged dogs with eyes that emit laser beams, who drool pure mercury - but I can't prove it. Open your eyes, man, they're all around us! Oh shit, here comes one now, run!
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.

Personally, I think anyone who declares unilaterally that something is so without 100% proof in their eyes is being a little silly. Agnostic all the way, baby! Is there a god, maybe yes, maybe no...I'm guessing there probably isn't, but I'll either rot in the ground and NEVER know for the rest of eternity, or I'll NEVER know until I die and go somewhere else. Either way, my tiny little primate mind would rather focus on things that I have some possibility of figuring out in my lifetime...like how I can afford to go to Cyberfest in Fresno next weekend AND take a week off for Burning Man in August AND still make payments on my monstrously huge debt...
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"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
-Jules de Gautier

To me, Atheism is not 100% certainty that god does not exist. In fact, it's not even an epistemological (knowledge-based) claim. It's a normative (prescriptive, how to live) claim.
That is to say, I don't claim to know that god does not exist, but rather I live my life in such a way that the existence of god is irrelevant.
I believe that using this rather liberal definition, many people who claim to be Agnostics would actually be Atheists.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.